Reclining chairs have been popular for over a century. Most of these chairs include a back support which is pivotally connected to the chair frame or base for movement between various positions relative to the seat support.
Some reclining chairs have also included a pivotal connection between the seat support and the back support which allows correlative movement between the two supports. A few of these chairs have included inclined ramps attached to the chair frame to allow for angular changes in the seat support relative to the floor.
U.S. Pat. No. 860,729 is typical of these ramp-type reclining chairs. As disclosed in the '729 patent, the rectangular seat support rides up inclined ramp B and roller C as the back support G is moved towards its multiple reclined positions. The concept in the '729 patent was to change the angle of inclination of the seat relative to the floor in order to compensate for the movement of the back support. Other U.S. patents which teach this basic concept are Nos. 728,141; 2,016,183; 2,098,623; 2,508,598; 3,947,06; 4,768,829; and Italian Patent 566,544. In each of these patents, the objective was to raise the forwardmost portion of the seat support to maintain a consistent angle between the seat support and back support.
The prior art chairs identified above did not address the critical problem of eye level. Typically, when one of the prior chairs was shifted into a reclined position, the change in angle of the back support caused the user's eye level to be lowered. The lowering of a user's eye level can be especially annoying when the chair is used in several environments, such as theaters, offices, and vehicles to name a few.
The prior art chairs identified above also did not address the mechanical balance of the chair to allow for the chair's tilt action tension to automatically adjust to all variations of a user's weight. Typically, when one of the prior chairs was shifted into the reclined position it was unbalanced until it reached its full reclined position or it was necessary to lock the chair in various tilting degrees. The unbalanced design of these chairs is annoying for users of different body weight especially in offices, vehicles, and theaters where chairs are used by so many different users daily.